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Rupert Murdoch: The Truth About Fox News' Lies is More than Malice [1]

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Date: 2023-04-19  

Where is my wallet?

Studying marketing in the 80s, I learned that for every single complaint about a place of business, the anger is conveyed to at least nine other people. What does that have to do with Fox News, you might ask? Every tv rating source reports that Fox News averages about three million viewers per night for its opinion commentators, Carlson, Hannity, and Ingraham. Most viewers who can get through at least fifteen minutes of their “straight news” are generally subjected, after each segment, to a hate-filled rant blaming either the LGBTQ+ community, billionaire George Soros or standby favorite Hunter Biden.

A Pew Research survey in 2019 purported that almost twice as many conservatives use Fox as their primary source of information more than any other conservative source. If you extrapolate those marketing numbers from the 80s, Fox’s nightly three million loyal watchers spread the network’s message to at least 27 million people. That 27 million spreads it, and so on and so on. It is dangerous to fall into a news silo that bases its news on what its audience wants to hear instead of the truth. Most of us watch the news to find out, but Fox uses the airwaves to find targets. Countless people connected with the 2020 presidential election have had to move, hide or publicly deny who they are. Who can forget Georgia’s mother and daughter election volunteers —forced to move from their homes and hide their identities?

Lawyers for Dominion Voting Machines spoke again last evening about the threats and fears the company’s employees still suffer. Previously a Dominion lawyer told the judge [threats] instilled “terror” among its employees and have “devastated” the company’s ability to recruit and retain staff. The relentless pressure on Dominion’s veracity by Fox must be considered an instigating factor. In the past, Fox has been accused of targeting various groups, including abortion doctors. Former Fox host Bill O’Reilly dedicated a portion of his show to Dr. George Tiller, whom O’Reilly dubbed “Tiller, the Baby Killer.” Fox’s pressure cannot be solely blamed for Dr. Tiller’s woes. His clinic was bombed in 1980, and he was shot in 1993. O’Reilly brought Tiller back to prominence in 2005, and after a four-year campaign of journalistic terror, Tiller was murdered on May 31, 2009, in church, one month after Fox’s last report in April.

The secret to Fox’s success is enraging its audience to a point beyond rationality. Although President Obama deported a record number of immigrants and President Biden has a record number of drug interdictions, what should be hailed as an enforcement success, Fox viewers are told, is somehow an abject failure. They base that failure on black and brown people in your neighborhoods. “Thirty percent of the people in the suburbs are minorities. And so we’re ruining this American dream for everybody,” Donald Trump told a mostly white crowd in Duluth, Minnesota., in October 2020.

News can point out dangers in society; lying news is dangerous to society. Fox News nightly tells its viewers to strap up a black or brown killer is on the way. When 84-year-old Andrew Lester answered the doorbell at his home, he imagined he saw one of those killers and shot sixteen-year-old Ralph Yarl in the head. Once he saw it was a slightly built black teen, he shot him again.

Continue to Vote for Change

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[1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/4/19/2164683/-Rupert-Murdoch-The-Truth-About-Fox-News-Lies-is-More-than-Malice

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